84 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



scrlber of Nature, is rendered comprehensible only by 

 the confident style as well as by the neatness of his 

 diagnoses, by which, with a single stroke, he put an end to 

 the indefinite character of Natural History, and appeared 

 to contemporaries and posterity as a lawgiver. The 

 exaltation of species as the basis of all systematic com- 

 prehension had never been so explicitly proclaimed. 

 His opinions culminate in the maxim, ^"^ " Reason teaches 

 that at the beginning of things, a pair of each particular 

 species was created." But with Llnnceus this said reason 

 looks rather strange, for it is subservient to the strictest 

 Scriptural belief, and he endeavours to harmonize his 

 geological conceptions with this standpoint. 



One very effective geological phenomenon was espe- 

 cially striking to him, namely, the upheaval of a great 

 portion of the Scandinavian coast. It proceeds more 

 rapidly than the subsidence of another part ; its phe- 

 nomena are far mightier ; and thus the idea might be 

 formed that the continent had risen from the sea in 

 regular progression. " I believe that I am not straying 

 far from the truth," he says, " if I affirm that in the 

 infancy of the world all the mainland was submerged 

 and covered by an enormous ocean, save one single 

 island in this immeasurable sea, on which all animals 

 dwelt and plants grew luxuriantly."'^ 



It follows that all species of plants likewise existed in 

 this lovely garden, as it is expressly said that Adam 

 named every animal ; consequently all insects must 

 have been assembled in Paradise, but insects cannot be 

 imagined without plants. Linnaeus then makes the first 

 attempt at animal geography by making the animals 

 disperse themselves from this centre. But the summary 



